Historical Debian Constitution v 1.0

Historical version of the Constitution for the Debian Project (v1.0)

Version 1.0 ratified on December 2nd, 1998. Superseded by
Version 1.1 ratified on June 21st,
2003, which is itself superseded by version 1.2,
ratified on October 29th, 2003. Version 1.2 was again superseded by
version 1.3 ratified on September 24th, 2006.
Version 1.3 was again superseded by version 1.4
ratified on October 7th, 2007.
That was superseded by the version 1.5
ratified on January 9th, 2015, and again superseeded by the
version 1.6, ratified on December 13th, 2015.
That was superseeded by the current version 1.7,
ratified on August 14th, 2016.

1. Introduction

The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have
made common cause to create a free operating system.

This document describes the organisational structure for formal
decision-making in the Project. It does not describe the goals of the
Project or how it achieves them, or contain any policies except those
directly related to the decision-making process.

2. Decision-making bodies and individuals

Each decision in the Project is made by one or more of the
following:

The Developers, by way of General Resolution or an election;

The Project Leader;

The Technical Committee and/or its Chairman;

The individual Developer working on a particular task;

Delegates appointed by the Project Leader for specific
tasks;

The Project Secretary.

Most of the remainder of this document will outline the powers of
these bodies, their composition and appointment, and the procedure for
their decision-making. The powers of a person or body may be subject to
review and/or limitation by others; in this case the reviewing body or
person's entry will state this. In the list above, a person or
body is usually listed before any people or bodies whose decisions they
can overrule or who they (help) appoint - but not everyone listed
earlier can overrule everyone listed later.

2.1. General rules

Nothing in this constitution imposes an obligation on anyone to
do work for the Project. A person who does not want to do a task
which has been delegated or assigned to them does not need to do
it. However, they must not actively work against these rules and
decisions properly made under them.

A person may hold several posts, except that the Project Leader,
Project Secretary and the Chairman of the Technical Committee must
be distinct, and that the Leader cannot appoint themselves as their
own Delegate.

A person may leave the Project or resign from a particular post
they hold, at any time, by stating so publicly.

3. Individual Developers

3.1. Powers

An individual Developer may

make any technical or nontechnical decision with regard to their
own work;

propose or sponsor draft General Resolutions;

propose themselves as a Project Leader candidate in
elections;

vote on General Resolutions and in Leadership elections.

3.2. Composition and appointment

Developers are volunteers who agree to further the aims of the
Project insofar as they participate in it, and who maintain
package(s) for the Project or do other work which the Project
Leader's Delegate(s) consider worthwhile.

The Project Leader's Delegate(s) may choose not to admit new
Developers, or expel existing Developers. If the Developers
feel that the Delegates are abusing their authority they can of
course override the decision by way of General Resolution - see
§4.1(3), §4.2.

3.3. Procedure

Developers may make these decisions as they see fit.

4. The Developers by way of General Resolution or election

4.1. Powers

Together, the Developers may:

Appoint or recall the Project Leader.

Amend this constitution, provided they agree with a 3:1
majority.

Override any decision by the Project Leader or a Delegate.

Override any decision by the Technical Committee, provided they
agree with a 2:1 majority.

Issue nontechnical policy documents and statements.

These include documents describing the goals of the project,
its relationship with other free software entities, and
nontechnical policies such as the free software licence terms that
Debian software must meet.

They may also include position statements about issues of the
day.

Together with the Project Leader and SPI, make decisions about
property held in trust for purposes related to Debian. (See
§9.1.)

4.2. Procedure

The Developers follow the Standard Resolution Procedure, below.
A resolution or amendment is introduced if proposed by any
Developer and sponsored by at least K other Developers, or if
proposed by the Project Leader or the Technical Committee.

Delaying a decision by the Project Leader or their Delegate:

If the Project Leader or their Delegate, or the Technical
Committee, has made a decision, then Developers can override them
by passing a resolution to do so; see §4.1(3).

If such a resolution is sponsored by at least 2K Developers,
or if it is proposed by the Technical Committee, the resolution
puts the decision immediately on hold (provided that resolution
itself says so).

If the original decision was to change a discussion period or
a voting period, or the resolution is to override the Technical
Committee, then only K Developers need to sponsor the resolution
to be able to put the decision immediately on hold.

If the decision is put on hold, an immediate vote is held to
determine whether the decision will stand until the full vote on
the decision is made or whether the implementation of the
original decision will be delayed until then. There is no
quorum for this immediate procedural vote.

If the Project Leader (or the Delegate) withdraws the
original decision, the vote becomes moot, and is no longer
conducted.

Votes are taken by the Project Secretary. Votes and tallies
results are not be revealed during the voting period; after the
vote the Project Secretary lists all the votes cast. The voting
period is 2 weeks, but may be varied by up to 1 week by the Project
Leader, and may be ended by the Project Secretary when the outcome
of a vote is no longer in doubt.

The minimum discussion period is 2 weeks, but may be varied by
up to 1 week by the Project Leader. The Project Leader has a
casting vote. There is a quorum of 3Q.

Proposals, sponsors, amendments, calls for votes and other
formal actions are made by announcement on a publicly-readable
electronic mailing list designated by the Project Leader's
Delegate(s); any Developer may post there.

Votes are cast by email in a manner suitable to the Secretary.
The Secretary determines for each poll whether voters can change
their votes.

Q is half of the square root of the number of current
Developers. K is Q or 5, whichever is the smaller. Q and K need not
be integers and are not rounded.

5. Project Leader

5.1. Powers

The Leader may define an area of ongoing responsibility or a
specific decision and hand it over to another Developer or to the
Technical Committee.

Once a particular decision has been delegated and made the
Project Leader may not withdraw that delegation; however, they may
withdraw an ongoing delegation of particular area of
responsibility.

Lend authority to other Developers.

The Project Leader may make statements of support for points of
view or for other members of the project, when asked or otherwise;
these statements have force if and only if the Leader would be
empowered to make the decision in question.

Make any decision which requires urgent action.

This does not apply to decisions which have only become
gradually urgent through lack of relevant action, unless there is a
fixed deadline.

Make any decision for whom noone else has responsibility.

Propose draft General Resolutions and amendments.

Together with the Technical Committee, appoint new members to
the Committee. (See §6.2.)

Use a casting vote when Developers vote.

The Project Leader also has a normal vote in such ballots.

Vary the discussion period for Developers' votes (as above).

Lead discussions amongst Developers.

The Project Leader should attempt to participate in discussions
amongst the Developers in a helpful way which seeks to bring the
discussion to bear on the key issues at hand. The Project Leader
should not use the Leadership position to promote their own
personal views.

Together with SPI, make decisions affecting property held in
trust for purposes related to Debian. (See §9.1.)

5.2. Appointment

The Project Leader is elected by the Developers.

The election begins nine weeks before the leadership post becomes
vacant, or (if it is too late already) immediately.

For the following three weeks any Developer may nominate
themselves as a candidate Project Leader.

For three weeks after that no more candidates may be nominated;
candidates should use this time for campaigning (to make their
identities and positions known). If there are no candidates at the
end of the nomination period then the nomination period is extended
for three further weeks, repeatedly if necessary.

The next three weeks are the polling period during which
Developers may cast their votes. Votes in leadership elections are
kept secret, even after the election is finished.

The options on the ballot will be those candidates who have
nominated themselves and have not yet withdrawn, plus None Of The
Above. If None Of The Above wins the election then the election
procedure is repeated, many times if necessary.

The decision will be made using Concorde Vote Counting. The
quorum is the same as for a General Resolution (§4.2) and the
default option is None Of The Above.

The Project Leader serves for one year from their election.

5.3. Procedure

The Project Leader should attempt to make decisions which are
consistent with the consensus of the opinions of the Developers.

Where practical the Project Leader should informally solicit the
views of the Developers.

The Project Leader should avoid overemphasizing their own point of
view when making decisions in their capacity as Leader.

6. Technical committee

6.1. Powers

This includes the contents of the technical policy manuals,
developers' reference materials, example packages and the behaviour
of non-experimental package building tools. (In each case the usual
maintainer of the relevant software or documentation makes
decisions initially, however; see 6.3(5).)

Decide any technical matter where Developers' jurisdictions
overlap.

In cases where Developers need to implement compatible
technical policies or stances (for example, if they disagree about
the priorities of conflicting packages, or about ownership of a
command name, or about which package is responsible for a bug that
both maintainers agree is a bug, or about who should be the
maintainer for a package) the technical committee may decide the
matter.

Make a decision when asked to do so.

Any person or body may delegate a decision of their own to the
Technical Committee, or seek advice from it.

Overrule a Developer (requires a 3:1 majority).

The Technical Committee may ask a Developer to take a
particular technical course of action even if the Developer does
not wish to; this requires a 3:1 majority. For example, the
Committee may determine that a complaint made by the submitter of a
bug is justified and that the submitter's proposed solution should
be implemented.

Offer advice.

The Technical Committee may make formal announcements about its
views on any matter. Individual members may of course make
informal statements about their views and about the likely views of
the committee.

Together with the Project Leader, appoint new members to itself
or remove existing members. (See §6.2.)

Appoint the Chairman of the Technical Committee.

The Chairman is elected by the Committee from its members. All
members of the committee are automatically nominated; the committee
vote starting one week before the post will become vacant (or
immediately, if it is already too late). The members may vote by
public acclamation for any fellow committee member, including
themselves; there is no None Of The Above option. The vote finishes
when all the members have voted or when the outcome is no longer in
doubt. The result is determined according to Concorde Vote
Counting.

The Chairman can stand in for the Leader, together with the
Secretary

As detailed in §7.1(2), the Chairman of the Technical
Committee and the Project Secretary may together stand in for the
Leader if there is no Leader.

6.2. Composition

The Technical Committee consists of up to 8 Developers, and
should usually have at least 4 members.

When there are fewer than 8 members the Technical Committee may
recommend new member(s) to the Project Leader, who may choose
(individually) to appoint them or not.

When there are 5 members or fewer the Technical Committee may
appoint new member(s) until the number of members reaches 6.

When there have been 5 members or fewer for at least one week
the Project Leader may appoint new member(s) until the number of
members reaches 6, at intervals of at least one week per
appointment.

If the Technical Committee and the Project Leader agree they
may remove or replace an existing member of the Technical
Committee.

6.3. Procedure

The Technical Committee uses the Standard Resolution
Procedure.

A draft resolution or amendment may be proposed by any member
of the Technical Committee. There is no minimum discussion period;
the voting period lasts for up to one week, or until the outcome is
no longer in doubt. Members may change their votes. There is a
quorum of two.

Details regarding voting

The Chairman has a casting vote. When the Technical Committee
votes whether to override a Developer who also happens to be a
member of the Committee, that member may not vote (unless they are
the Chairman, in which case they may use only their casting
vote).

Public discussion and decision-making.

Discussion, draft resolutions and amendments, and votes by
members of the committee, are made public on the Technical
Committee public discussion list. There is no separate secretary
for the Committee.

Confidentiality of appointments.

The Technical Committee may hold confidential discussions via
private email or a private mailing list or other means to discuss
appointments to the Committee. However, votes on appointments must
be public.

No detailed design work.

The Technical Committee does not engage in design of new
proposals and policies. Such design work should be carried out by
individuals privately or together and discussed in ordinary
technical policy and design forums.

The Technical Committee restricts itself to choosing from or
adopting compromises between solutions and decisions which have
been proposed and reasonably thoroughly discussed elsewhere.

Individual members of the technical committee may of
course participate on their own behalf in any aspect of design and
policy work.

Technical Committee makes decisions only as last resort.

The Technical Committee does not make a technical decision
until efforts to resolve it via consensus have been tried and
failed, unless it has been asked to make a decision by the person
or body who would normally be responsible for it.

7. The Project Secretary

7.1. Powers

Takes votes amongst the Developers, and determines the number
and identity of Developers, whenever this is required by the
constitution.

Can stand in for the Leader, together with the Chairman of the
Technical Committee.

If there is no Project Leader then the Chairman of the
Technical Committee and the Project Secretary may by joint
agreement make decisions if they consider it imperative to do
so.

Adjudicates any disputes about interpretation of the
constitution.

May delegate part or all of their authority to someone else, or
withdraw such a delegation at any time.

7.2. Appointment

The Project Secretary is appointed by the Project Leader and the
current Project Secretary.

If the Project Leader and the current Project Secretary cannot
agree on a new appointment they must ask the board of SPI (see §9.1.)
to appoint a Secretary.

If there is no Project Secretary or the current Secretary is
unavailable and has not delegated authority for a decision then the
decision may be made or delegated by the Chairman of the Technical
Committee, as Acting Secretary.

The Project Secretary's term of office is 1 year, at which point
they or another Secretary must be (re)appointed.

7.3. Procedure

The Project Secretary should make decisions which are fair and
reasonable, and preferably consistent with the consensus of the
Developers.

When acting together to stand in for an absent Project Leader the
Chairman of the Technical Committee and the Project Secretary should
make decisions only when absolutely necessary and only when consistent
with the consensus of the Developers.

8. The Project Leader's Delegates

8.1. Powers

The Project Leader's Delegates:

have powers delegated to them by the Project Leader;

may make certain decisions which the Leader may not make
directly, including approving or expelling Developers or designating
people as Developers who do not maintain packages. This is to
avoid concentration of power, particularly over membership as a
Developer, in the hands of the Project Leader.

8.2. Appointment

The Delegates are appointed by the Project Leader and may be
replaced by the Leader at the Leader's discretion. The Project Leader
may not make the position as a Delegate conditional on particular
decisions by the Delegate, nor may they override a decision made by a
Delegate once made.

8.3. Procedure

Delegates may make decisions as they see fit, but should attempt to
implement good technical decisions and/or follow consensus opinion.

9. Software in the Public Interest

SPI and Debian are separate
organisations who share some goals. Debian is grateful for the legal
support framework offered by SPI. Debian's Developers are
currently members of SPI by virtue of their status as
Developers.

9.1. Authority

SPI has no authority regarding Debian's technical or nontechnical
decisions, except that no decision by Debian with respect to any
property held by SPI shall require SPI to act outside its legal
authority, and that Debian's constitution may occasionally use SPI as
a decision body of last resort.

Debian claims no authority over SPI other than that over the use
of certain of SPI's property, as described below, though Debian
Developers may be granted authority within SPI by SPI's rules.

Debian Developers are not agents or employees of SPI, or of each
other or of persons in authority in the Debian Project. A person
acting as a Developer does so as an individual, on their own
behalf.

9.2. Management of property for purposes related to Debian

Since Debian has no authority to hold money or property, any
donations for the Debian Project must be made to SPI, which manages such
affairs.

SPI have made the following undertakings:

SPI will hold money, trademarks and other tangible and intangible
property and manage other affairs for purposes related to
Debian.

Such property will be accounted for separately and held in trust
for those purposes, decided on by Debian and SPI according to this
section.

SPI will not dispose of or use property held in trust for Debian
without approval from Debian, which may be granted by the Project
Leader or by General Resolution of the Developers.

SPI will consider using or disposing of property held in trust
for Debian when asked to do so by the Project Leader.

SPI will use or dispose of property held in trust for Debian when
asked to do so by a General Resolution of the Developers, provided
that this is compatible with SPI's legal authority.

SPI will notify the Developers by electronic mail to a Debian
Project mailing list when it uses or disposes of property held in
trust for Debian.

A. Standard Resolution Procedure

These rules apply to communal decision-making by committees and
plebiscites, where stated above.

A.1. Proposal

The formal procedure begins when a draft resolution is proposed and
sponsored, as required.

A.1. Discussion and Amendment

Following the proposal, the resolution may be discussed.
Amendments may be made formal by being proposed and sponsored
according to the requirements for a new resolution, or directly by
the proposer of the original resolution.

A formal amendment may be accepted by the resolution's proposer,
in which case the formal resolution draft is immediately changed to
match.

If a formal amendment is not accepted, or one of the sponsors of
the resolution does not agree with the acceptance by the proposer of
a formal amendment, the amendment remains as an amendment and will be
voted on.

If an amendment accepted by the original proposer is not to the
liking of others, they may propose another amendment to reverse the
earlier change (again, they must meet the requirements for proposer
and sponsor(s).)

The proposer of a resolution may suggest changes to the wordings
of amendments; these take effect if the proposer of the amendment
agrees and none of the sponsors object. In this case the changed
amendments will be voted on instead of the originals.

The proposer of a resolution may make changes to correct minor
errors (for example, typographical errors or inconsistencies) or
changes which do not alter the meaning, providing noone objects
within 24 hours. In this case the minimum discussion period is not
restarted.

A.2. Calling for a vote

The proposer or a sponsor of a motion or an amendment may call
for a vote, providing that the minimum discussion period (if any) has
elapsed.

The proposer or a sponsor of a motion may call for a vote on any
or all of the amendments individually or together; the proposer or
sponsor of an amendment may call for a vote only on that amendment
and related amendments.

The person who calls for a vote states what they believe the
wordings of the resolution and any relevant amendments are, and
consequently what form the ballot should take. However, the final
decision on the form of ballot(s) is the Secretary's - see 7.1(1),
7.1(3) and A.3(6).

The minimum discussion period is counted from the time the last
formal amendment was accepted, or the last related formal amendment
was accepted if an amendment is being voted on, or since the whole
resolution was proposed if no amendments have been proposed and
accepted.

A.3. Voting procedure

Each independent set of related amendments is voted on in a
separate ballot. Each such ballot has as options all the sensible
combinations of amendments and options, and an option Further
Discussion. If Further Discussion wins then the entire resolution
procedure is set back to the start of the discussion period. No
quorum is required for an amendment.

When the final form of the resolution has been determined it is
voted on in a final ballot, in which the options are Yes, No and
Further Discussion. If Further Discussion wins then the entire
procedure is set back to the start of the discussion period.

The vote taker (if there is one) or the voters (if voting is done
by public pronouncement) may arrange for these ballots to be held
simultaneously, even (for example) using a single voting message. If
amendment ballot(s) and the final ballot are combined in this way
then it must be possible for a voter to vote differently in the final
ballot for each of the possible forms of the final draft
resolution.

Votes may be cast during the voting period, as specified
elsewhere. If the voting period can end if the outcome is no longer
in doubt, the possibility that voters may change their votes is not
considered.

The votes are counted according to the Concorde Vote Counting. If
a quorum is required then the default option is Further
Discussion.

In cases of doubt the Project Secretary shall decide on matters
of procedure (for example, whether particular amendments should be
considered independent or not).

A.4. Withdrawing resolutions or unaccepted amendments

The proposer of a resolution or unaccepted amendment may withdraw
it. In this case new proposers may come forward keep it alive, in which
case the first person to do so becomes the new proposer and any others
become sponsors if they aren't sponsors already.

A sponsor of a resolution or amendment (unless it has been
accepted) may withdraw.

If the withdrawal of the proposer and/or sponsors means that a
resolution has no proposer or not enough sponsors it will not be voted
on unless this is rectified before the resolution expires.

A.5. Expiry

If a proposed resolution has not been discussed, amended, voted on
or otherwise dealt with for 4 weeks then it is considered to have been
withdrawn.

A.6. Concorde Vote Counting

This is used to determine the winner amongst a list of options.
Each ballot paper gives a ranking of the voter's preferred options.
(The ranking need not be complete.)

Option A is said to Dominate option B if strictly more ballots
prefer A to B than prefer B to A.

All options which are Dominated by at least one other option are
discarded, and references to them in ballot papers will be
ignored.

If there is any option which Dominates all others then that is
the winner.

If there is now more than one option remaining Single Transferrable
Vote will be applied to choose amongst those remaining:

The number of first preferences for each option is counted,
and if any option has more than half it is the winner.

Otherwise the option with the lowest number of first
preferences is eliminated and its votes redistributed according
to the second preferences.

This elimination procedure is repeated, moving down ballot
papers to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. preferences as required, until one
option gets more than half of the first preferences.

In the case of ties the elector with a casting vote will decide.
The casting vote does not count as a normal vote; however that
elector will usually also get a normal vote.

If a supermajority is required the number of Yes votes in the
final ballot is reduced by an appropriate factor. Strictly speaking,
for a supermajority of F:A, the number of ballots which prefer Yes to
X (when considering whether Yes Dominates X or X Dominates Yes) or
the number of ballots whose first (remaining) preference is Yes (when
doing STV comparisons for winner and elimination purposes) is
multiplied by a factor A/F before the comparison is done. This
means that a 2:1 vote, for example, means twice as many people voted
for as against; abstentions are not counted.

If a quorum is required, there must be at least that many votes
which prefer the winning option to the default option. If there are
not then the default option wins after all. For votes requiring a
supermajority, the actual number of Yes votes is used when checking
whether the quorum has been reached.

When the Standard Resolution Procedure is to be used, the text
which refers to it must specify what is sufficient to have a draft
resolution proposed and/or sponsored, what the minimum discussion
period is, and what the voting period is. It must also specify any
supermajority and/or the quorum (and default option) to be
used.

B. Use of language and typography

The present indicative (is, for example) means that the statement
is a rule in this constitution. May or can indicates that the
person or body has discretion. Should means that it would be
considered a good thing if the sentence were obeyed, but it is not
binding. Text marked as a citation, such as this, is rationale
and does not form part of the constitution. It may be used only to aid
interpretation in cases of doubt.